Christopher Bruce lifted the title of his latest work, God's Plenty, from a tribute made by John Dryden to the poetic exuberance of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - parts of which form the basis of Bruce's production. The title also strikes a chord, however, with the unusual ambition of Bruce's own endeavour which marks his first solo venture into full-length dance drama.
The show is more than two hours long and its Chaucerian material is prefaced with a lengthy, symbolic synopsis of early English history in which Bruce contrasts his themes of male and female sexuality, Christian and pagan love. Throughout the evening his choreography is constantly shifting to reflect the diverse range of its material, from vaudeville vernacular at one extreme, to stylised ancient Greek poses at the other. The whole of the company is also involved in performing the choreography, music and text - for the first time we see an all-singing, all-dancing and all-talking Rambert.
It is a huge enterprise but there is thankfully very little of merrie olde England in its staging. The clever, and sometimes luminously beautiful designs by Es Devlin and Ben Ormerod use sliding screens and coloured light to create landscapes and interiors which are resonantly atmospheric rather than ploddingly naturalistic. The score, by Dominic Muldowney, may use medieval music but it is grounded in the composer's own modern idiom. And Bruce's choreography, while sometimes opting for a direct translation of Chaucer (aided by an actor narrating from the side of the stage), also sheers off into complex, wonderfully executed dance.
Much could have been relished by Chaucer himself - including the feral courting dance performed by two mythological beasts in the mysterious flickering light of the opening scene, or the ravishing simplicity of Emily's solo in The Knight's Tale, with its glancing angles and voluptuously contoured curves. There is joyful physical comedy in The Miller's Tale, with an effete and capering Absalon and a Nicholas bent double from hormonal overdrive.
But as a poet skilled in rhetoric, Chaucer would also see parts of the work as padding, for the vision and wit in God's Plenty are frustratingly erratic. The problems are several but most damaging is the degree to which Bruce loses his way, both choreographically and philosophically, in his long introduction. The show takes far too long to catch fire, and even in the more dramatically focused Tales section, the actor/narrator lacks a sufficiently lively and trenchant personality to carry the scenes through their occasional longueurs. Overall the work flags almost as much as it flies and what we see is not so much God's Plenty as the labours of Bruce's slightly overstretched imagination.
Touring until December 1. Box-office: 0161-242 2503
